Accessible User Interface


The Accessible Keyboard Interface was designed to be easy to access and simple to use. It's easy to find each key on your keyboard, just slide your finger across the top row of keys on your keyboard and count them off, "Esc, F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8", just press the F6 key if you need a reminder about what each key does.

Accessibility Keys and their Functions:

Esc - Scan, OCR and read a page of text
F1 - Pause/Resume reading
F2 - Replay the last text page from the beginning
F3 - Read the entire text buffer (multi-page)
F4 - Clear text buffer (to start a new document)
F5 - Save text buffer as MP3 audio and copy to MP3 Player
F6 - Help function - announce description of commands
F7 - Exit SnapVision and optionally turn off PC
F8 - Convert color image to high contrast image

In addition to the keyboard commands, the Accessible User Interface has two extra keys (+,-) to control image scaling. These two keys are easily located on the far right side of a standard keyboard. This feature is perfect for those with reduced vision who would like a magnified image of the document while listening to the audio output. If you're primarily interested in viewing magnified document images and not reading the documents, then you can select the Magnifier option instead of the OCR and Read option in the Settings->Accessibility... dialog.

Configuring the Accessible Interface

If you have difficulty using a PC, we recommend having a friend or relative help you with configuring the Accessible User Interface. It will only take a minute or two of their time.

Before you use the Accessible User Interface, you need to configure the options to your own preferences. You do this by opening the Settings->Accessibility... dialog and setting the following options:
  1. Set the reading voice to either US English(Lauren) or UK English(Audrey)
  2. Specify whether or not to delete the image after OCR to save memory.
  3. Specify whether the F7 key should only exit SnapVision, or exit SnapVision and shutdown the PC.
  4. Select the image capture device for the "Esc" key, either TWAIN/WIA scanner, Document Camera/Webcam, or Wireless Capture with BlueTooth or Eye-Fi.
  5. Specify the MP3 output device/directory for the F5 key.
If you specified that the "Esc" key capture device is a Document Camera, you will also need to select which camera to use. You do this by selecting the File->Document Camera... dialog, and select the preferred camera in the listbox and click on OK and then exit the dialog.

If you specified that the "Esc" key capture device is a "Wireless Capture" device, then you will first need to access the Wireless Capture... dialog and specify the image transfer directory and exit the dialog.

If you specified that the "Esc" key capture device is a TWAIN/WIA device, then you need to choose a device with the "File->Select Source" menu. You will also need to change the Settings->Image Source... from Camera to Scanner.

The above steps need only be applied one time to initialize the settings. They will be in place from then on, every time you use SnapVision.